Discussion Characters / TheOrderOfTheStick

I don't understand — can you rephrase the question?

For some reason, the main page ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderOfTheStick ) is gone, it says We don't have an article named Order Of The Stick. We do, however have: De: The Order of the Stick

Clicking on takes me (to what I think) is the GERMAN version of the page https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/De/TheOrderOfTheStick?from=De.OrderOfTheStick

The original main page also has a lock on it.

It's at The Order of the Stick.

The "clues" to their alignment are all mainly fandom interpretation, so I'd hold off on assigning any alignment, personally.

I'm Sure I read on the forum's collection of the author's posts that the bounty hunters were meant to be something-neutral. Can't find the post at the moment though.

Well, considering that she's so stupid mentally retarded that she's little more than a liability, I kinda think Bozzok would consider using up precious resources (seriously, diamonds seem to be the rarest mineral ever in this setting) a waste of time and, most importantly to him, money.

I'd say "The Western Continent" would be as good a name as any.

How about Tarquin's Crew?

^^ That's a good choice

Although ^ gets points for humor.

Incidentally, I was thinking that although mostly nameless so far, that Tarquin's adventuring party should be added to Five Bad Band:

• Tarquin- Big Bad
• Malack- The Dragon (with strong elements of The Evil Genius)
• Unnamed Barbarian- The Brute
• Chick with Ioun Stones- The Evil Genius
• Rakshasa woman- Dark Action Girl
• The woman advising the Empire of Sweat- Dark Chick

"Tarquin Crew" is to spoileric

"Western Continent" is better choice.

Some people just seem to be really pedantic about that sort of thing. I'm personally in favor of just straight wikiwording everything, since it's tidier.

Um yes yes he is a villain, there is nothing morally ambiguous about him. Yes he is on the side of the good guys buy only so that he can kill loads of people without paying the consequences. He would harm an innocent ( Elan, Rodrigues, that gnome, that Azurite soldier). Heck he's even a card carrying villain. The only reason he is not against Roy's team is not because he hates doing evil but because it was in his best interest not to. Face it he is a Heel.

Wrong, KSonic. He is on the heroes' team and has been from Comic 1; that makes him a hero.

Edit: Get over your personal crusade. The rest of the tropers do not agree with you. In the context of tropology, that makes you wrong.

A villain can be on the good guy's side if it is in his best interest and doesn't have to be doing evil just because. Belkar is not a hero at all. He doesn't care about doing the right thing.

Neither does the Heroic Sociopath. From the article:

The Heroic Sociopath is a gleefully wicked character who takes on the role of The Hero and works towards a positive goal while being as evil as possible along the way. He or she may be compelled to do good by blackmail, supernatural compulsion, money, their own amusement, or simply because they recognise that co-operating with the other good characters in their story is ultimately to their own benefit.

Belkar is the page image for crying out loud!

It also mentions that it is a form of anti hero that is a sociopath. Belkar is not that at all. I have no idea why it is called Heroic Sociopath though. Heck the laconic wiki even describes that trope "He's our monster."

Okay what I'm saying is that to call him an anti hero is to say that he skirts the line between good and evil, but he is clearly on the dark side

Not that, either. Anti-Hero is a large trope that encompasses everything from the Jerkass to the Villain Protagonist. See Sliding Scale Of Anti Heroes.

I'm failing to see the issue here. Belkar fits the bit Fighteer quoted from Heroic Sociopath pretty much exactly.

Villain Protagonist, however, seems to refer to the main character (Belkar is not the primary protagonist), who is working toward villainous goals; Xykon and Redcloak in Start Of Darkness would qualify. Belkar has no "goals" of his own beyond "stab someone in the near future and try not to get caught." As part of Roy's team, ostensibly his goal is to prevent the end of the world. Which is a heroic goal. That he acts evil in pursuit of a good goal makes him a Heroic Sociopath.

The distinction is clear. Just because you hate Belkar doesn't mean he's a Villain of the story.

so "stab someone in the near future and hope not to get caught" isn't a villainous goal? for sure his goal really isn't what you said it is.

So wait a Villain Protagonist isn't a protagonist that happens to be unambiguously evil person?

Wait, you think I hate Belkar Bitterleaf just because I thought he was a villain?

It's a "goal" inasmuch as "Hm, I think I'll have a sandwich for lunch today" is a goal. Belkar doesn't have any villainous plans, and his objective, if he has one, is the fairly heroic "prevent Xykon from taking over the world," even if he's only doing so because Roy ordered him to.

It's about what they're doing, not how they're doing it. It's about goals and objectives. If we were following Belkar in a solo story, where he was trying to murder an innocent person and the story was from his point of view? Yes, that would make him a Villain Protagonist in that story. It's all about the context of the larger story, not about his individual actions.

Oh I get it. Evil=/= villain. Thanks :)

On the thinking you hate Belkar thing, I've seen edits on here a lot of the time that amount to, "I hate this character, so I'm going to shoehorn any negative trope I can into his/her description,"—and I've seen people edit this page in particular to do that to Belkar specifically—so at first I thought that's what happened here.

As it seems not to be the case, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

is difficult to define, although belkar is evil, is the side of good.

Heroic Sociopath = Anti-Hero + Sociopath.

Is belkar A Anti-Hero ? In a way, the only reason that can be considered an antihero Belkar, this is because the side of good.

She's never had a canonical alignment in the story, so it's a case of people WMG'ing based on their own personal beliefs about the alignment system. I say cut all the entries.

If she's Neutral, why was she hiding from a Detect Evil?

There's no indication that the characters automatically know their own alignments (most of them do, but those are the obvious cases). She's clearly not capital-G Good, so she'd probably want to be on the safe side.

But yeah - unless the Giant has spelled it out, let's not assign Therkla an alignment. She's too ambiguous.

What edit war? The only one that seems to cause an argument is Julio and that wasn't an edit war, more like an minor edit debate. I personally think we should keep the alignmnents as unlike most shows there is a legitimate reason - the webcomic in question actually use Dn D alignment

Except we don't know the alignments of several characters, and as you yourself have just proven, it's fuel for Edit Wars even or perhaps especially in a D&D context.

Meh you're right. I really didn't wish to cause an Edit War especially with Julio. On second thoughts, Chaotic Neutral may probably fit Julio better or most likely he doesn't have an alignment.

See: Robin Hood. However, it's a bad idea to discuss Character Alignment for people that don't canonically have them, for the exact reason that it tends to start Edit Wars.

Edit: Actually, I'm going to hold off on cutting them. Seems like someone's gone to a lot of trouble to format the page consistently. Just stop edit warring over it, or I will.

But he robbed innocent rich women for selfish reasons using evil means to achieve a selfish end. That is the difference between Julio and Robin Hood. What, is stealing from the rich a good act now? :/